Grid Legends in the technology test – ComputerBase : Test |CUP | Specs |Config

Codemasters arcade racing series enters the next round with Grid Legends. The technology test shows a very good performance, especially with AMD Radeon, GeForce models are a bit slower. The frame rates are still high enough on most test subjects.

After the reboot of the arcade racer Grid (technology test) from 2019 was received with mixed feelings, the new successor Grid Legends should do it better. This not only applies to the game, but also to the graphics. Unsurprisingly, the in-house EGO engine is used, which last showed its muscles in F1 2021 (technical test).

Neat graphics turned on the back burner

Unlike the official racing game for Formula 1, Grid Legends does not use all the capabilities of the technology on the PC. Not only is ray tracing missing, because the upsampling technologies AMD FSR and Nvidia DLSS are also not represented. The game is also turned down to the minimum in terms of visual features. That’s not to say that Grid Legends didn’t turn out to be a beautiful title, but it certainly could have been done better.

Definitely the graphical highlights of the DirectX 12 exclusive Grid Legend are the cars, which show a lot of details and are generally pretty to look at. The numerous weather effects from sunset to rain to snow are also well implemented and create a lot of atmosphere, even if a dynamic weather function is unfortunately missing.

The surroundings don’t look bad either, but then fall behind the rest. Be it buildings, spectators or, for example, vegetation: In this respect, F1 2021 is superior to the arcade game. Overall, the presentation is still convincing, even if there are definitely prettier competitors.

There is not much more than the most necessary functions in the Grid Legends graphics menu. The PC version offers graphics presets, numerous individual graphics options and the option to activate a dynamic resolution, which then tries to keep the frame rate at a minimum of either 30 FPS or 60 FPS by adjusting the resolution. Grids Legends does not offer any more functions – no FPS limiter, no example screenshots or descriptions and no other comfort.

What is still there is an integrated benchmark. Unlike the F1 series, for example, it cannot be configured in any way with different tracks or weather conditions. The benchmark rather represents the optimal case in terms of performance.

Game Presets

Grid Legends has five different graphic presets: “Very Low”, “Low”, “Medium”, “High” and “Ultra High”, with “Ultra High” also representing the maximum level of graphic detail. The optical differences between “ultra high” and “high” are small, but there. The shadow display suffers the most, which becomes significantly larger with “High”. In addition, the LOD works much more aggressively with some objects, so that switching back and forth between different levels of detail is sometimes visible.

From the medium level of detail, however, the optics suffer clearly in places. Some trees no longer show any details at all, which is less noticeable when driving at full speed, but is downright ugly at the start, for example. In addition, many objects have less detail, which is mainly, but not exclusively, noticeable in the vehicles. The middle preset takes all previous measures and intensifies them further. On top of that, fewer viewers are shown. “Very Low” removes all spectators and some other objects.

The tuning potential is decent

Grid Legends responds properly to the different graphics levels, which increase the performance fairly evenly. Switching back from the maximum ultra-high details to the high preset accelerates the frame rate by 26 percent on the Radeon RX 6800 XT and by 27 percent on the GeForce RTX 3080. With the middle level, the FPS are then increased again by 27 or 28 percent. The Low preset adds another 23 and 25 percent boost, while Very Low adds an additional 20 and 18 percent, respectively.